It is customary to market pharmaceutical products in paste form in manually collapsible tubes which can be squeezed or collapsed for purposes of causing the paste to exit an outlet nozzle in the tube. Such tubes are usually placed into elongated cartons which are generally square in cross section and have a planar flap or extension that is coplanar with one of the walls of the carton extending laterally from the carton. Generally, the width and length dimensions of the flap correspond to the width and length dimensions of the wall of the carton. Machines for packaging the tubes into such cartoning are well known and do not formulate a part of the invention disclosed herein.
As cartons containing the tubes exit a tube packaging machine, they are generally moved along a path so that the container portion of the carton abuts up against the next adjacent and leading carton with the flap on the rear one of the cartons overlapping the container portion of the next adjacent leading carton. It is generally the desire of the pharmaceutical company to package the tube containing cartons into units of, for example, one-half dozen, which units are wrapped in a clear transparent foil wrapping before being placed into a shipping container. The flap on the leading most carton causes a substantial waste of space in the shipping carton since the clear wrapping foil will prevent occupancy of an available space by an adjacent carton.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an article handling device which will manipulate a series of product containing cartons to orient them so that a flap on a leading carton will be reversed to overlap the container portion on the next following carton and vice versa.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an article handling device, as aforesaid, which is easily transported from one packaging machine to another to enable the article handling device to be utilized in a variety of environments and to handle different size packaging and the like exiting a tube packaging machine.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an article handling device, as aforesaid, which is capable of handling a plurality of such cartons and manipulating them so that all of the flaps on a selected plurality of cartons are simultaneously reversed so the flaps thereof overlap the container portions of the next following plurality of cartons.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an article handling device, as aforesaid, which includes structure for efficiently handling the cartons to be manipulated to thereby enhance the speed of operation of the article handling device.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an article handling device, as aforesaid, which can be easily oriented between the exit location of a tube packaging machine and an entrance to an area whereat units containing a plurality of such cartons can be placed into a shipping carton.